I'm probably behind the curve in offering my editorial, but nevertheless....

Last last Saturday I wandered down to the local version of sports bar to watch UFC 100. I was mainly interested in the Lesnar/Mir fight, but unfortunately I didn't last long enough to see it. The bar was standing room only, and after being on my feet for almost two hours, I gave up and wandered home. My back feels a lot better than it used to, but I'd reached my max. I didn't get to see the Lesnar/Mir fight live.

I did, however, find it the next morning on the Internet. Lesnar rode Mir like a kiddie ride outside a Walmart and scored an easy victory. He then proceeded to insult Mir, the event sponsor, and flip-off the crowd. Wow.

I'm not naive. The UFC is about making money, and the way you make money is to entertain people. Yet ask a fighter why he's there, and very few will say they go in the ring to entertain fans. There are lot of easier and less painful ways to go about entertaining people than fighting inside a cage. Those that say they do are fooling themselves. They might hope the fans are entertained, but the reason most of them go in the ring is to stand in front of the cave and test themselves in combat.

And when the dust settles and one man stands with his hand raised, axes are buried, man-hugs exchanged, and respect granted. Most of the time.

Maybe I've swallowed the Kung-Fu stereotype, but martial arts is supposed to have a mental and spiritual aspects. It's supposed to be about exploring yourself, developing discipline and growing all aspects of your being--mind, body and spirit. The renowned Japanese swordsman Myamoto Musashi found that the more sought excellence in his martial training, the more he sought excellence all things.

People get into martial arts for different reasons. They usually start out of a desire to learn some self defense skills or for fitness. Once basic skills are learned, some students quit while others continue to study for many different reasons; they enjoyed the exercise, they like advancing in rank. Maybe they get into sparring and enjoy the competitive aspect of the sport. There are even some thugs who take advantage of their skills to have power over others. They like to fight and they like to hurt people, usually by taking their martial skills down to the local bar.

Lesnar acted like a thug. His behavior was bad for mixed martial arts and set a poor example for the younger fans who might one day want to step into the ring themselves. There are a few other thugs in the sport as well, although I've never seen one carry it to as far an extreme as Lesnar did. Fighters like GSP and Diego Sanchez are examples of how MMA is much more about yourself than who you step into the ring with. These are the fighters we should be talking about, not Lesanr and Henderson, who struck a downed opponent he knew wouldn't be getting back up again. He can cliam 'the ref didn't stop me' all he wants, but that second shot came out of a desire to punish, not to win.

Nevertheless, the actions of Lesnar and Henderson will be good for the UFC's bottom line. Fans love to watch athletes they hate as much as those they love. Many of them value the violence over the sport and enjoyed seeing Bisping get that extra whack. Tickets will sell, pay-per-views will be purchased, shirts will be worn.

I was glad to hear White came down hard on Lesnar. I was glad Lesnar apologized. I'm sure he was caught up in the moment. Maybe he was having a WWE flashback. Maybe he, like Chris Leban, can move beyind the combat aspect of the sport and use as a means to self exploration and personal growth.

I just hope as MMA continues to grow, the mental and spiritual aspects of martial arts won't get left behind.

Want to be good at something? Really, really good? Talent doesn't matter. What matters is practice, 10,000 hours of it to be precise. That's 20 hours a week, or about 3 hours a day, for 10 years. Do that, and chances are you will be very, very good at what you do.

Many of us see such accomplished people and attribute their skill and resulting success to innate talent, but in his book Outliers: The Story of success, Malcolm Gladwell proposes that the outrageous success some individuals achieve is mainly the result of two things. Primarily, it is the result of hard work. Successful people don't just work harder, they work much, much harder. To a lessor extent, and depending on the industry, timing can also have a huge influence.

In his book, Gladwell defines what he calls the "10,000" hour rule, and address the subject of innate ability. We like to think some people are just born with a unique gift or talent that will enable them to rise to the top, seemingly without any effort. When Gladwell digs into the success of some of these people, he learns innate ability plays a much smaller role than preparation.

"The idea that excellence at performing a complex task requires a critical minimum level of practice surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours."

So the question then becomes: What made these people different, in that they had the motivation and persistence to keep going to achieve that level of expertise? Why do some people burn out while others keep going? Most of us become bored far before we get close to that mythical 10,000 hours. Yet some others keep pushing forward. Why?

I see the pattern repeated time and again i my own life. I have had many interests, and most of them I stuck with until I reached a certain level of competence, and then I became bored, or disillusioned with the work I would have to do to keep getting better, and I quit.

Perhaps then the secret to success is not innate talent or ability, or even hard work, but rather the perseverance and persistence to keep doing the work until you achieve mastery. How do we keep ourselves interested in the seemingly endless effort and striving for improvement? Maybe the answer to that question is the secret of success. Maybe that persistence is the innate ability one needs to have to reach the highest levels of competence?

I decided to play hooky yesterday; with both the kids in some sort of summer camp, my wife and I headed out for a rare day together and the prospect of uninterrupted conversation. She's been jonesing to see Away We Go so off we went.

Although the theater left much to be desired, we enjoyed the movie. Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) are unexpectedly expecting their first child. Their current residence, a ramshackle house with inadequate heating, was chosen for its close proximity to Burt's parents. But Burt's parents announce their intent to move, and Burt and Verona embark on a journey with the intent of finding a place to settle and start their family.

It's a quirky film with quirky characters--perhaps a bit too quirky--that points a lens toward that searching feeling most of us have had at one time or another. Am I doing the right things? Am I in the right place? Am I headed in the right direction? Am I doing everything I can with my life? Unfortunately, these questions have no answers, or rather, have answers that reveal themselves in retrospect only.

Most of us are trained to think life has certain check-boxes and deadlines, and if we make the right plan and fill them in we will achieve fulfillment and happiness. Once embroiled in the actual process of living, however, we are quickly disabused of the notion that life can be planned. One of my favorite lines is from the movie U-Turn: "Nothing makes the Great Spirit laugh like a man’s plans."

We all imagine being safe and secure and not having to deal with anything sad or difficult. It's just a dream, however, and one that can never be realized. Life and all that it entails is hard and complicated and no amount of seeking will ever reveal a place where it's not. Nevertheless, it's the human condition to strive. It is also the human condition to wonder if what we have is really what we want.

In its representation of archetypes, the movie is one of extremes, but not so much that they ruin the story. I think most people will recognize the characteristics on display, if not the characters themselves. Burt and Verona are too centered, too self-contained, more selfish than they think, and perhaps a bit smug without even realizing it.

If you enjoy movies such as American Beauty (also directed by Mendes), Lost in Translation, or Adaptation, you'll probably be a good fit for Away We Go.